432 - A parcel-gilt silver communion cup from the church of Nieder-Budberg

A parcel-gilt silver communion cup from the church of Nieder-Budberg On a moulded foot ring with a lozenge frieze, the tall tapering beaker with a slightly flared lip. The body decorated with engraved scrollwork and fruit garlands; beneath the lip, an encircling dedicatory inscription: “I. HASSELS VEREHRT DIESEN BECHER DER KIRCHEN ZU NIEDER-BUDBERGH : A.T.SCRIBA PASTOR.” Height 15.6 cm, weight 296 g. No assay mark, mis-struck maker's mark "...G", attributed to Lower Rhine region, mid-17th C. Theodor Scriba (1646-1680) was a Protestant Reformed pastor who, from 1675 onwards, served as pastor in Budberg (today a district of Rheinberg in the Lower Rhine region). He apparently received the communion cup as a gift from Johann Hassel, a wealthy farmer from Budberg who held the office of church warden in the parish. Perhaps Pastor Scriba’s early death at the age of only 34 was connected with the ecclesiastical and political conflicts in the Lower Rhine region. The parish of Budberg was a small Protestant enclave that had to maintain its position in a highly hostile, Catholic-dominated environment within the Electorate of Cologne. Even at the time of his induction, Scriba complained in a letter that he had been “seer jammerlycke geschlagen” (“beaten most grievously”) by French soldiers allied with Elector Maximilian Heinrich, known as the Franssen Sauve Guards.